Is China Bound to Explode?

Business Week ^ | MAY 5, 2003 | Mark L. Clifford

[bruinbirdman]

THE NEW CHINESE EMPIRE And What It Means for the United States.

If you want to understand why China's government has engaged in a massive cover-up of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, read Ross Terrill's The New Chinese Empire. The book, of course, was in the can long before SARS erupted, presenting Beijing's leaders with their worst crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and its aftermath. But the pattern of paternalistic posturing, blatant lying, and dismissive slapping-down of anyone who questions official truth follows a pattern common in China for two millenniums. It is just this imperial attitude and its relation to the range of current problems that Terrill analyzes so cogently.

[headsonpikes]

"There is little discussion of the notion that China could evolve into a pluralistic, democratic society..."

Or, presumably, of the notion that dragons form the Chinese Air Force.

China might become such a society some day, but it will be through revolution, not evolution.

[aSkeptic]

"There is little discussion of the notion that China could evolve into a pluralistic, democratic society..."
pluralistic? Should they have affirmative action? (kinda ironic if you think about it). Democratic?! By the time they counted all the votes, it would be time for the next election!!

[headsonpikes]

"Just like the revolution that caused the collapse of the USSR!"

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd prefer to see a few more heads on pikes this time around.

[aristeides]

SARS is Red China's Chernobyl.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The book, of course, was in the can long before SARS erupted

Mixed metaphor alert!

[HighRoadToChina]

BUMP!

[Ferris]

Like the empires of old, the Communist state today has a deeply ingrained sense of its right to rule, and doesn't see the necessity for democratic processes.

And yet the state is nothing more than a group of individuals...

[Dog Gone]

SARS may hurry it up, but I think the Chinese government was doomed anyway. We are quickly moving into an information age, and no nation can censor information and remain competitive over the long run.

It would be a source of major discontent (because some information would get through, anyway), and it inherently causes distrust.

SARS put that under a magnifying glass.

[blam]

"China might become such a society some day, but it will be through revolution, not evolution."

This ought to do it, huh?

Short China (SARS)

[warriorfor honor]

The Chinese govt. is doomed the question is when.
I think with 10's of millions of military age males
that will never find a wife.(one child policy)
They will use a war in an attempt to burn off all of that
testrone before they fall.
And they will do it before all that angry energy is
directed at them.
That will be the beginning of their end.
Millions will die as the Chinese tyrants fall.